MEET OUR BOARD

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Linda was born and raised in McGillivray Township as the eldest of 9 children and attended NMDHS in Parkhill. She has been blessed with two sons, their spouses and 5 grandchildren. She resides on a farm outside of Dashwood with her life partner Bob Hoffman. Linda's career spanned 38 years with BMO, Commercial Banking, both locally and in London. While in Fernie B.C. for 3 months in 2014, she started following a painting show
on PBS and decided to try painting with acrylics. Following a road trip to Calgary for supplies, painting became a creative outlet for her in addition to crafting and gardening. She is honoured to have been asked to sit on the Board of the new South Huron Arts Centre. 

Barb is a lifelong resident of South Huron, raised on a mixed farm on Morrison Line. She made the move to Exeter when she married her late husband, Brian, and together they raised four terrific ladies. Barb is a supporter of the Arts as art always needs patrons to enjoy, admire and praise their art, play or novel.

Barb spends her leisure time gardening, reading, attending plays with family and friends. She spends a lot of time with her grandchildren playing games, crafting, and exploring nature.

Barb is amazed by the talent, creativity, passion, and dedication artists have and hopes to foster her love and appreciation of art in her family and community. Artistic talent is essential and everywhere and needs a place to call home and SHAC in South Huron is that space and place.

Leigh-Anne has always had a passion for being creative. She, therefore, is thrilled to be part of the South Huron Arts Centre. She started her career in Travel and Tourism and retired after 34 years. In her spare time, she enjoys taking on new creative projects whether engaging in paint, textile, wood, mortar, and refinishing furniture. Loving the idea of bringing all her creative skills together, she completed her interior design certificate and enjoys helping others renew joy in their living space. She recently found the art of pottery and has loved exploring her creative side with a new medium. Leigh-Anne currently resides in Grand Bend with her husband Jim and has 2 children who live with their partners in Grand Valley and Peterborough. Leigh-Anne looks forward to working with the South Huron Arts Centre team to grow this amazing community organization.   

Stephen T. Holmes is an award-winning actor and comedian born and raised in Exeter. From a young age he has always had a passion for arts and creativity. He graduated from Fanshawe College's Theatre Arts program in 2012 and has been acting in plays and short films in the surrounding area ever since. He has won Best Actor at the First Take Film Festival in 2014, 2016, and most recently in 2022. In 2017 he co-founded the comedy duo The S&M Experience with his friend and comedy partner Matthew Miner. The pair release new sketch comedy videos every month on their YouTube channel and have had their work featured in comedy festivals across North America and have been featured on Funny Or Die.

Rick and Jane wandered from Windsor to Toronto and then to London, where their children began showing up. Following a stint in Southampton, they lugged Eric, Tim and Beth to Exeter. While Rick and Jane have hung around for over thirty years, the kids escaped. The boys live in Lucan and Beth is in London. They now have wonderful spouses and the world’s top seven grandkids, according to the latest ranking. Since retiring, Rick has found a strong following for his mystery novels featuring Grand Bend Private Investigator, Jack Beer. Book seven, One Last Fix will be self-published in the spring of ’23. 

You can visit Rick or download free copies of his award-winning short stories, at www.rickhundey.ca. Or say hello to him at rickhundeymysteries@gmail.com.  You could try his cell phone if he owned one.. 

Deb has been passionate about the arts, since playing the donkey in the Christmas play in Grade 1. She studied ballet, tap and jazz from the time she was 4, earning the Gold Medal in Ballet from the University of Western Ontario when she was 18, and performing with a professional jazz dance company for three years while attending University. Deb performed in plays throughout high school and university and now enjoys directing and choreographing the annual South Huron Community Theatre shows. Deb was an elementary and secondary school teacher, secondary school Principal, founding administrator of Virtual High School (Ontario), National Learning Consultant for Pearson Education, and Director of Curriculum for TVO, among other roles. She is currently a doctoral student and works part-time for Queen's and Athabasca Universities. Deb enjoys chairing the Board for SHAC, teaching classes at the Art Centre and  her weekly playdates with her beautiful grandboys.

 Daniel is an Engineer by trade but in his free time is eager to share his passion for the arts. Throughout university he led and performed in a variety of a cappella groups at UW and McMaster, and competed in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), various Gilbert and Sullivan and other music theater productions and the University Chamber Choirs. He continues to perform chamber music with the Juno-nominated Da Capo Chamber Choir in Kitchener-Waterloo. He strongly supports local and grassroots arts initiatives for live music, community theatre and believes in creating opportunities where artists can be compensated for their work and talents. In addition to the SHAC Board, Daniel sits on the executive for the Cultural Collective of South Huron. 

Art has been an important part of Ruth Anne Merner’s life for as long as she can remember. Art makes her happy so she feels very lucky to have had a career making art and sharing the excitement of creativity with people of all ages for many years in both this community and for 32 years in the Thames Valley District School Board-where the art departments at Wheable S.S., Banting S.S., and Montcalm S.S. were Ruth Anne’s second homes. As a lifelong resident of South Huron, she has found it so rewarding to work with countless area volunteers on successful community projects such as Empty Bowls, Empty Spoons, The Great Poppy Installation in Goderich and the Bright and Beautiful event in support of Jessica’s House. There is great joy in helping people discover and use their own creativity and at the same time support important local causes. As an original member of ArtAroundTown for about 12 years Ruth Anne has helped to promote the arts in South Huron and to participate in arranging many classes in a wide variety of the visual arts for all ages. Her personal artwork focuses on clay and glass. Ruth Anne is thrilled to be a part of the team initiating this new Art Centre which will be such an asset to our community.